The NFT market - Overall

Non fungible tokens (NFTs) are cryptographic and virtual elements on the blockchain with unique identification codes and metadata (author, signature, date, type...) that distinguish them from one another. NFTs as we know them have been around since around 2014, but became globally known from 2016 and 2017 thanks to the first art collections using this technology: Rare Pepes, CryptoPunks and CryptoKitties. A non-fungible good is a non-interchangeable good, meaning that it is unique and cannot be mistaken for another good. A commodity such as rice or a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin are examples of fungible goods: they can be replaced by similar goods without the need to differentiate between them.this non-fungible cryptographic token is stored on a blockchain (usually Ethereum) to become the certificate of authenticity for a digital file attached to it. The digital file itself is fungible: an image, video or sound can be copied and duplicated, but not the cryptographic token that serves as its certificate. Today, we tend to attach NFTs to the digital files they certify, and this is quite normal, but technically speaking, an NFT remains an original use of a smart contract: a token stored on the blockchain.the blockchain's operation enables it tocertify the validity of all transactions within it, and therefore the validity of a non-fungible token stored on it. It's also very easy to browse the blockchain to observe transactions, enabling anyone to verify the origin and complete history of an NFT.to greatly simplify matters, an NFT is a certificate of authenticity, immutably stored on the blockchain, making it more effective than a paper certificate of authenticity . The explosion of the NFT market has affected the art market in particular. For example, the NFT of the digital work "Everydays: the First 5,000 Days", signed by American crypto-artist Beeple, sold for almost $69.3 million at auction, an unprecedented record. Today, the global NFT market is estimated at over $41 billion. In France, the market is booming, as evidenced by the growing popularity of Sorare. The startup enables users to acquire and exchange soccer player trading cards in the form of NFTs. At the start of 2022, the startup was valued at over $5 billion, making it one of the major unicorns in the French ecosystem.